Scott and Jean

[x-jeangrey.livejournal.com]

Finally, Jean goes to confront her husband.



"I'm not speaking to you." Which seemed a tad redundant as she'd come down to the medlab, specifically, to find her husband and inform him of this fact.

Scott... didn't feel the need to point that out. He'd woken up back here, with nothing over his eyes and no apparent need for anything, and nothing but a bone-deep ache everywhere to show for the fact that he'd nearly met an explosive end. Charles had been in, to explain what had happened, and Amelia had growled at him and been entirely too forceful with the one blood test she'd done since he'd awakened.

No Jean, though. He'd known she was all right - he could feel her presence on the link - but he hadn't been all that surprised that she hadn't come down to see him right away. In fact, that only thing he was surprised about was that she hadn't stalked in here and thrown something at his head.

"Hi," he said instead, very quietly. Not quite able to bring himself to meet her eyes.

Which meant he hadn't yet spotted the dark purple shiner around her eye which she refused to cover. At least part of Amelia's (extra) bad mood had probably a lot to do with Jean's explanation that, 'My husband beats me when I won't let him stupidly go off to die.'

"Not. Speaking. To you."

He looked up, spotted the black eye, and winced. "Jean..."

"So, what is it about our relationship that has lead us both to believe that the best way out of it is to die nobly?" she asked, eyes narrow, ignoring the twinge of pain. "I mean, really, it's a whole new level of unhealthy."

Scott stared down at his hands for a moment. "I didn't think there was anything particularly noble about it," he said finally. "I just figured it was necessary. I felt so different this morning, Jean."

That was cheating. It was already hard enough to stay angry at Scott when he wasn't being remorseful. And she wanted to be angry. Being angry was better than being afraid, which she still was, in spite of the fact that he was here, alive and recovering. "God dammit," she muttered, yanking a chair across the room with slightly more force than necessary to sit opposite him. "You're a bastard." But there wasn't any force behind it, this time.

"I know. I'm sorry I hit you." He looked up, and there was an odd, unhappy little smile playing on his lips. "I didn't want to. But I didn't..." He didn't know what he wanted to say. "I didn't want you right there when - if it happened, even if you would have survived. I..." Oh, she was going to hit him for this. "I watched you die once. I didn't want you to go through the same thing."

Jean's eyes narrowed again. "So, we both get the 'death as a way out' card, and the 'making life and death decisions for each other' card. And, if you don't come up with something better than that, in a second we're both going to get the 'my spouse beats me' card."

He shrugged, wincing a bit at the movement. "Can't come up with something better than the truth, Jean. Unless you'd prefer I'd lied. I didn't want you to see it, and I didn't-" His jaw tightened. "I wasn't going to be a weapon for them. Killing even one person would have been too much."

"Including you," Jean said, and it was an agreement, in a way, but possibly not the way he wanted. "You gave up, Scott. You gave up on me and, you know, that I can kind of deal with. But you gave up on yourself. Killing even one person would have been too much, so why didn't the fact that they would have killed you matter?"

Scott twitched at that, and the look in his eye was odd, uncertain as he met her gaze. "... I suppose that I--I mean, I thought that it would be better. If it was just me."

"Not. Better." There was steel in her voice.

"Why not?" He seemed to rally, at least a little. "I made a decision to go to Portugal, Jean, to take the chance. That Preserver could have killed me right there. I was supposed to let him take out anyone else just because he did something that meant I'd take a week to die?"

"Ok, there is really no rational argument to something so completely stupid," Jean said, then smacked him.

It wasn't a friendly tap, but neither had she smacked him as hard as she was capable of smacking him. He knew the difference, from years upon years of sparring. Still, Scott jerked backwards, nearly smacking his head on the wall behind the bed. "Well," he muttered, his jaw numb. "Okay. Even now?" The hand he raised to rub at his jaw was shaking suddenly, violently.

That had been a very real sort of slap, and had done very nicely to clear his head. And he didn't want it to be clear, he preferred the slightly surreal feeling to everything since he'd woken up... he blinked repeatedly, his eye stinging.

"In the sense where I don't get to kiss you goodbye while you're unconscious, no. In the sense where I don't feel any better, either, also no." But she let go of the anger, at least for the moment, and the pain that replaced it was evident in her eyes. "So, can you tell me why you think the man I love with all my heart is seemingly not even worth fighting for?"

What slipped out was a pained, soft laugh. "Oh, you fight dirty..." He'd known that, though. His eye kept stinging, and he rubbed at it doggedly. His voice was steadier when he went on, though. "I... don't know. I know it seemed like the most logical thing in the world to leave, when you wouldn't. It felt like I didn't even need to think about it. I don't know what that means."

"Aside from the fact that you were feverish and possibly deranged from the power overload, and the clear lack of value you place on your life, I'm sure I don't know what it means, either." Reaching over, she caught the hand rubbing at his face, holding it between hers. "And yes, I fight dirty. It's this weird thing I have about holding onto and protecting the people I care about, even if it means protecting them from themselves. And cheating."

"It was just-" Scott's voice was a little ragged again. "Shut up, like that, and helpless... things were just feeling less and less real. It just became very mechanical, looking at my choices... like this tactical problem, not my life."

Jean sighed. "It's hypocritical of me, I know," she said, "to be upset at you, after all the things I've done. If nothing else, I should be able to empathize with feeling disconnected from your own life. But then, I'm pretty sure you know exactly how scared I was when I woke up down there and you were gone."

"Stupid no-win situations," Scott muttered wretchedly, looking away again. "I didn't want to leave you. When I was flying out to sea, I wanted..." To turn the plane right around and come back, but he'd shut all that out and kept flying.

"They say you always hurt the ones you love, but we do seem to take it to extremes."

"I'm sorry." It was almost a plea, and he laid his other hand over hers. They were still shaking, even as his voice grew a little steadier. "I tried to get you to leave. You probably realized that was what I was doing. I would have sat there in that containment chamber and let you run remote tests if you and the others had just left..."

"I've already left you too many times, Scott. I'm not doing it again." She sounded tired, and hurt, but she wasn't sure if she was hurt on her own behalf or on his.

"Our relationship isn't a scorecard." Scott stopped, swallowing. "I didn't think you would let me go, even if you needed to. That's probably egotism. But you said it yourself - you feel like you've left me too many times, even though you either had to do it or had no real choice each time..."

"So? I still left. I'm tired of leaving. I'm tired of losing you, and almost losing you. So no, I wouldn't have let go. You got to choose that your life was more important than mine, I'm not allowed the same?"

His jaw tightened again, and he looked again, shaking his head - although he didn't let go of her hands. "You already made that choice once, remember? Where do you think I might have picked up that idea, huh?" Another soft, if wild laugh slipped out, and his hands tightened on hers almost spasmodically. "Wow, do we make a pair. Did we have individual martyr complexes to begin with, or is it a product of the relationship?"

Jean opened her mouth to reply, then shut it, well aware that what she'd just said was stupid. And given the prior response to stupidity, she didn't feel like giving him a chance to hit her back. "I blame Charles," she finally said. "Regardless of what the actual answer is, I'm blaming Charles."

Scott closed his eyes, taking a deep breath and then letting it out. Then repeated it twice, before he finally responded. "I'm glad I'm not dead," he said, opening his eyes and looking at her. "I'm very glad I'm not dead, and from the sounds of it, I owe a number of our teammates as many thanks as you're due apologies."

"Glad you're not dead doesn't even begin to cover it," Jean said, then suddenly dropped her head over their clasped head, trying not to cry.

He freed one hand, raised it to stroke her hair - and was suddenly, shockingly reminded of making the same gesture as she'd been laying there on that cot, unconsciously. His hands started to tremble again, but he leaned forward, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

"How about this," Jean said without looking up, managing to sound almost in control. "If either of us goes running off with the specific intention of dying at the end of the day ever again, the other one's allowed to hunt them down and kill them personally."

"'Keep the martyr complex under wraps or you die?' That... just about fits, doesn't it?" He was tired, and he hurt, and even knowing that it would be better in the morning wasn't really helping. He didn't want to be down here, but he knew better than to make any suggestions therwise.

"It's very us, yes; backwards and broken."

"I don't want to be backwards anymore," Scott said, sounding oddly stubborn as he closed his eyes, his head drooping a little. "When the plane went down, I-I just wanted to be back with you, Jean. I didn't want to be alone. I shouldn't have left." It just... slipped out, and he was dimly surprised to know that he meant it.

At that Jean looked up - his eyes were closed, but she could feel the truth in the statement. "Thank you," she said and then, because he was so close and because she wanted to, needed to, she leaned closer and kissed him.

Some of the tension drained away, first at her words and then at the kiss. That only served to hammer home just how exhausted he was, and he sighed as she leaned back. "It's been a hell of a week. You must be dead on your feet, too."

"Little bit," she admitted. "Although I got an unexpected nap..." There was actually a hint of a smile in her voice as she said that.

He managed a faint smile in response, but it faded again almost immediately. "I'm a little nervous, about going back to sleep..."

"The advantage of the private room," Jean said, nodding back over her shoulder at the door, "is that I can stay." She hesitated a moment. "If you want."

"Please?" Scott's voice was soft, a little unsteady again. "I just need to be able to wake up and know that I'm home and it's over." He mustered up another wan smile. "You being here... it's the only way I know that I'll know for sure."

"With the added benefit that I get to wake up and know that you're home and it's over, too." A thought closed the door and Jean stood up, toeing her shoes off without letting go of his hands. "Lie down?"

Scott did, shifting over to allow her a little more of the bed. "... ow," he said a bit feebly, then sighed as he settled back against the pillows. "You'd think I'd been exploding or something."

The medlab beds weren't really designed for cohabitation, but just now, Jean didn't care. "Yeah, funny that."

"I was thinking... about all the things I wished I'd said or done. While I was flying," Scott said after a long moment. "I kept coming back to not telling you that I love you, often enough..."

Jean curled up next to him, propping up on an elbow to look down at him. "Lucky, then, that you're getting more chances. I love you when you're an idiot, and when you beat me, and when you make stupid decisions I don't agree with. I don't love you because of those things, but I do love you, all the time, in spite of them."

Scott smiled, really smiled, for the first time in a week. "Love is never letting me get away with being an idiot? I sometimes do learn, you know..." He reached out for her hand, closing his eyes again. "Don't say it," he murmured. "I know I'm a lucky man."

Jean laced her fingers through his, leaning over to kiss him gently on the forehead. "Yeah, but you're not the only lucky one here. Go to sleep, Scott. I'll be here when you wake up."